Latin
 

How many here know Latin? I took Latin in HS and loved it, but neither memorization nor composition were emphasized by my teacher (oddly enough...) so although I have a good grasp on general syntax, not much else - inflections, mostly - have stuck 4 years later. I recently picked up Wheelock's Latin course & workbook at Borders, and it's been just like learning it all over again (except more thoroughly), which I've been enjoying. So I was just wondering - how many know Latin? Are you self taught? What text did you use? What authors have you read? Etc?

I haven't done any for about 4 years now, but I used to do it in school. I was the top in my year at it and wanted to continue it on but due to clashes in the timetable I had to chose between Latin and Triple Award Science (i.e. Chemistry, Physics and Biology) and even though I loved Latin I didn't think as good a move in the long run.

I'd love to pick it up again once I get some time. I can still remember all the tables of "Porto, Portas..." etc. They were drilled into our heads lol.

Ah, yes, the tables :) My teacher in school was regrettably lax, so they weren't exactly drilled into our heads; he gave us charts and lists and outlines and we really learned nothing aside from what we naturally picked up. I planned on continuing it in college, but I had a scheduling issue, too, so I ended up taking Russian instead.

I took 3 years of Latin in high school, but that was almost 30 years ago and I can't remember squat, except that we had to read Ovid's Ars Amatoria. It really paid off at SAT time, though.

Does "pig-latin" count?

oh-nay. :rolleyes:

:D I was going to say the same thing

Yeah, well, then my response to YOU is oh-nay, ish-bay. :p

what's your avatar?

We didn't have latin in our school. Had a bf who did, and he knew it well.
I'd like to have learned it. I know my latin roots well, but in an intrinsic rather than recallatory way. I think it's cool when people know it. The end.

I took 2 years of Latin and I don't know a single word! Which is really sad. I loved my Latin class though- I had the best teacher. She gave everyone A's. I know some Latin phrases like "ad nauseum" and "et cetera" but everyone knows those!

Did you know Stevius Nicksum was Latin?

Really? I must of played hookey the day we studied that chapter!

I believe you mean Stevia Nicksa, sir.

:p
Marianne Faithfull smoking a cigarette.

I took it! 4 years! I remember - nothing! :laugh:

Well, OK, that's not toally true but I don't remember a lot. I vaguely recall the odd (to this American, anyway) sentence structure & the feminine/masculine words. It did help me a lot with nursing, as far as medical terms & abbreviations. It's a lot easier to know what an abbreviation means if you know the actual word the letters stand for.

For example, NPO means Nothing By Mouth. Obviously, those letters don't match up. But it makes much more sense if you know that the Latin is Non Per Os (I think I got that right - it translates to nothing through the mouth.)